Mystical systems
Astral Body
Direct answer
Astral Body: The astral body is, in Theosophy and related teachings, a subtle body of finer matter that interpenetrates the physical one, carries emotion and desire, and can separate from it.
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At a glance
- Also called
- astral double, subtle body, body of light, etheric double
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Astral Plane, Astral Projection, Silver Cord, Theosophy
The astral body is, in Theosophy and related teachings, a subtle body of finer matter that interpenetrates the physical one, carries emotion and desire, and can separate from it.
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What is the astral body?
The astral body is the second body of esoteric teaching. It is described as an exact double of the physical form made of finer stuff, the seat of feeling and desire, visible to clairvoyants as a coloured aura. In sleep it is said to hover near the sleeper or to travel, and at death to leave for good.
Theosophy counts it as one of several bodies, between the etheric double, which gives the flesh its vitality, and the mental body. Other schools number the bodies differently and give them other names. No instrument has detected such a body, and the teaching rests on the reports of those who say they see or use it.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Astral projection.
What sets Astral Body apart
The name records an old theory of where the body comes from. For the later Platonists the soul, descending to birth, gathers a garment from each of the planets and stars, and this starry vehicle is what joins mind to flesh. Theosophy kept the name and changed the meaning, making the astral body the vehicle of emotion in a stack of bodies. Leadbeater described its colours in detail, each feeling showing as a hue, and that description is the source of most modern aura charts.
- Word: astral, 'starry', from Latin astrum
- Platonist forerunner: the ochema, a luminous vehicle of the soul, in Porphyry and Proclus
- Renaissance sense: the sidereal or astral body of Paracelsus
- Theosophical scheme: Annie Besant, Man and His Bodies, 1896
- Place in the stack: above the etheric double and below the mental body
- Colour charts: C. W. Leadbeater, Man Visible and Invisible, 1902
Often mistaken for something else: The etheric double in Theosophy is the vital pattern that stays with the flesh; the astral body is the emotional vehicle said to travel away from it.
The story behind Astral Body
Later Platonists such as Porphyry and Proclus wrote of a luminous vehicle that the soul acquires from the stars on its descent. Paracelsus in the sixteenth century spoke of a sidereal or astral body. Blavatsky adopted the term in the 1870s and 1880s, and Annie Besant's Man and His Bodies of 1896 fixed the Theosophical scheme that most later writers follow.
Why Astral Body matters
Projection, the aura and much talk of subtle anatomy all depend on this one idea, so its history shows how recent the familiar version is.
How to read Astral Body
Practitioners treat it as the vehicle of projection. Readers can take it as a picture for the felt, emotional side of bodily life.
Astral Body in practice: an example
A manual that tells the reader to imagine a second self standing beside the bed is using the idea of the astral body as a working picture.
Where readings of Astral Body go wrong
Astral Body is a teaching and a picture; no such body has been observed. Nothing about anyone's health should be read from a supposed astral body or aura.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- astral double, subtle body, body of light, astral body meaning, etheric double
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
See Astral Body in your personal almanac
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Common questions
What is the astral body?
It is the subtle second body described in Theosophy and related teachings, said to be the seat of emotion and the vehicle a person uses in sleep, in projection and after death.
Is the astral body the same as the soul?
Not in the teachings that use the term. Theosophy treats it as one of several vehicles the soul wears, and as something that is itself shed some time after death.
Where does the idea of an astral body come from?
Its roots are the Platonist vehicle of the soul and the sidereal body of Paracelsus. The modern form was set by the Theosophists in the late nineteenth century.
